A veteran of over 250 missions and details for the Sheriff's Department, Friday had been losing mobility due to a spinal disc problem and was put to sleep at 0930 on March 18, 1997. Friday worked details for 40 different law enforcement agencies in the greater San Francisco Bay Area during his 8 plus years as a working Bloodhound. He had a well rounded track record which included two underwater drowning victim finds, treeing a bad guy and working countless crime scene investigations. One crime scene trail Friday worked successfully turned out to be 15 days old. Friday had the distinction of working a great number of Northern California kidnapping cases. His testimony helped convict one kidnapper who was sentenced to 102 years in jail. The outcome of some of his best trails are yet to come. Please don't be sad. Friday is finally free of his disabling condition and we should all be happy knowing heaven will be a safer place with Friday there now "on duty". During the March 27,1997 Search and Rescue general membership meeting, Friday’s harness and Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department Bloodhound badge number "714" were officially retired. On March 28th, Good Friday, the flags at the Sheriff’s Field Operations Building were lowered for the day in Friday’s memory. Friday, thank you old buddy and may you run forever on the trails of the kingdom beyond.Friday was born on December 19th, 1987. He worked his first live mission, a criminal case, November of 1988 at age 11 months. That trail identified a house where the bad guy we were chasing went and, we later found out, fled out the back door. Questioning people in the house led to the arrest of the badguy the next day. The suspect was charged with 35 felony counts of burglary and robbery. Friday worked his last trail January of 1997 investigating the exit route taken by suspects in a courthouse bombing in Vallejo. Friday’s drive to work outweighed his mobility problems but it was clear that he needed to retire. Having trouble walking, Friday was still able to ID where the suspects made their getaway in a vehicle. Our brother officers in Vallejo (PD, SO, ATF etc.) at my request, cleared the entire area of news media cameras so Friday’s limping wouldn’t be viewed on the 6 o’clock news! God, how he really loved to "go to work".
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